Two Psychopaths And A Baby
by Fleimkepa
Summary: After saving their youngest number yet, Root and Shaw have to go undercover hidden in plain suburbia until they find out what exactly Samaritan wants with a newborn baby, but will they stumble across even bigger challenges on the way? Rated M for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Shaw liked order, she liked control, she enjoyed Kentucky bourbon and as an Axis II sociopath, she'd even go as far to say she loved guns; more specifically the Colt M4A1 assault rifle, that was the only baby she wanted to rock in her arms, along with a reload magazine and an anti-flash muzzle break of course.

"I can understand the parents, but why the hell did _its_ number come up?" Shaw growled into her ear-piece as she stalked down the apartment hallway. Root followed quietly behind her as she stepped over the dead parents like they were nothing more than strewn clothes, rummaging through the ransacked apartment looking for any clues in connection to that thing. She never understood why people liked babies, if it wasn't for neurological chemical encoding people would eat them, or enslave them. Although, they wouldn't be much use in hard labor camps thanks to their poor muscle mass, she thought.

"It would appear the parents both worked for your former employer Miss Shaw, any ideas why the ISA would want to harm the child?" Harold's voice crackled through their ear-pieces from the safety of his library.

"To clean up the mess, no one wants the orphan of two special-ops agents growing up asking questions about classified business," Shaw hummed, rooting through the kitchen cupboards as she looked for more clues. "My guess is that if we didn't bust into this place when we did, the kid would have been next." she mused, cocking a glance to the two operatives they'd killed in the hallway.

"Oh my, this..." he trailed off and the dull metronome of his fingers typing against the keyboard filled the sound. "This is bad." Harold panicked.

"Let me guess, more operatives?" Shaw rolled her eyes, jumping up from behind the kitchen sink with her M4A1 loaded in her hands.

"No, not that, she would have told me." Root shook her head and bounced the crying baby she'd plucked from the crib in her arm, she pulled a gun from it's holster with her spare hand just in case the machine was wrong and she had to kneecap the next person to barge through the front door.

"Samaritan has issued instruction to it's operatives to capture the child. It wasn't the ISA that did this, the parents were just collateral." Harold said with confusion, they'd dealt with some interesting numbers before but never one so young. Never one important enough for Samaritan to identify as relevant.

"So what's the plan? Drop Baby Annabelle here off at child protective services and head back to the subway?" Shaw asked with indifference, opening a holdall bag as she started throwing baby clothes and diapers inside.

"Her name is Samille." Root swallowed the deep burn of annoyance that licked the insides of her throat back down, bouncing the child unnaturally gently whilst she did it. She was a reformed killer for hire and the analogue interface of a god-like super intelligence, she certainly wasn't used to bouncing babies, but she taught her that every life mattered and Samille was important and right now, they were all she had. Though she wouldn't admit it, Root always had a soft spot for kids and Shaw knew it. She saw it right down in the way her pupils dilated and her mouth widened into a grin at every sticky, disgusting toddler that babbled at her on the bus.

"Oh no," Shaw shook her head, pointing her finger towards the taller brunette as she took a step closer. "We're not getting attached to this thing, it doesn't get a name. You either call it Baby or It and if I hear anything else come out of your mouth... I'll put it in the holdall." she snarled, turning on her heel to throw more items in the bag.

"I'm afraid it's not as simple as dropping the baby off, Miss Shaw." Harold sighed into their ear-pieces, the machine had already told Root what the logical course of action was the minute Samaritan had issued orders to its operatives, the absurdity of it was hilarious to her, but she could see the logic if she tried to look at the bigger picture.

"Well make it that simple, Harold."

"Miss Shaw, Samille needs a cover identity and protection until we can figure the finer details out. Unfortunately, Samaritan has infiltrated nearly every government bureau and turning her over to CPS until we know why it is she's being sought after isn't an option-"

"Do not suggest what you're about to suggest."

"I'm afraid it's too late, Samaritan has reviewed the buildings security footage and marked both of your cover identities as targets, I need you both to go into hiding for now and protect the baby." Harold ordered.

"We've got company," Root rolled her eyes and interrupted all of it, "We need to leave now, eight Samaritan operatives coming up the east-stairwell and the elevators are off." she relayed the machine's intel from her cochlear implant, "The window, now." she already started to move as the noise of pounding against the front door greeted them.

"You seriously want to take the fire escape? How lame." Shaw rolled her eyes, climbing onto the escape stairs after them but somewhere in the pit of her belly the fire was growing, the sixth sense that told her she was about to get to fire her gun.

Root used the sheet she'd torn from the clothesline to fashion a sling for the newborn baby, wrapping her tightly against her chest in the material as operatives from below began to fire into the emergency stairwell at them. Bullets ricocheted dangerously close to them and Root did all she could to protect the little one from the brunt of it. Sameen covered Root and the lump under her jacket, pulled them behind her body and stared down the barrel of her fully automated rifle and took out two of the operatives like it was nothing more game sport.

"Hey kids, mama's home." Shaw joked under her breath, returning fire to a sniper hidden in the opposite block of apartments. She turned with expert stealth and fired blindly into the glass of the apartment three windows down. The reward was the screams of the would-be sniper she'd capped in the shoulder.

"How did you know there were agents there, even she didn't know." Root scrunched up her brow and kicked down the fire escape ladder, shielding the child wrapped to her chest from the shots that whizzed past them from below.

"Because that's where I would've scouted us out." She tersely explained, leading the way down the ladder towards the street below.

They dropped the small jump from the bottom of the fire-escape ladder and hit the ground of the pavement, sprinting towards the car as bullets flew past them with Shaw covering them. She fired little shots here and there, one at the window and two at the door, none of them were hits and as if time wasn't a fleeting resource she found enough of it to curse herself for missing.

A bullet skimmed past her and Root finally lost her temper. Between her and Shaw, she was supposedly the reckless one, the careless one, the one who would cut intestines out and make someone wear them as a necklace until they told her what she wanted to hear... the last part was possibly true but as for the rest, she was the calm and collected one and she knew as much. It was hard not be with the voice of God in her ear. But nothing could cool the rage building deep in the pit of her stomach where the dark stuff lived, that their enemy would fire at them knowing she had a newborn baby strapped to her chest. What separated these battles from the kind of shootings on street corners was the cold, clinical professionalism displayed by both sides. Firing at a newborn baby wasn't professional, it was an act of careless volition, one that wouldn't go unnoticed.

"Get Samille in the car, I've got a message to send to Greer." she shouted over the gunfire to Shaw as the smaller woman opened the passenger door, Root took cover behind the interior side of the frame from the enemy fire and unwrapped the baby from the sling she had fashioned, placing her tiny body in Shaw's stiff and uncertain hands.

"How about you get in the car with the baby and I'll deal with this." Shaw tensed her jaw, her arms outstretched with the newborn as Root grabbed her bag of magic tricks from the footwell.

"Aw. That's cute." Root flashed Shaw her trademark smile as she grabbed a grenade from her bag and pulled the pin, throwing it over the door-frame. It rolled under the chassis of a blacked out escalade down the street and exploded underneath the gas tank, sending smoke billowing so high the snipers in the building could no longer aim at them through the black cloud. "Mommy, get in the car and leave Daddy to handle this one." she winked, throwing her bag over her shoulder and striding into the midst of chaos.

Shaw stiffly held the screaming baby in her arms, the U.S Marines never prepared her for this, the ISA never covered how to hush a newborn baby in it's torture training exercises on Guantanamo Bay. Shaw didn't do emotions, but if she did, she'd describe this as the closest thing to fear.

"Shut up." she said awkwardly at the baby, climbing in the back seat with the child in her arms.

"Miss Shaw, try rocking the baby." Harold suggested over the radio before another round of angry baby squeals cut him off.

"Shut. Up." Shaw ordered again, her voice was harsher, more certain of her demands this time.

"She's a baby she doesn't understand—"

"I wasn't talking to the baby that time, I was talking to you." Shaw corrected him, placing the howling child belly up on the dog bed beside her as she resigned herself to the insufferable wailing until Root came back to fix it. "Root do you need backup?" Shaw asked through her ear-piece, it was the closest she would ever get to asking "Are you okay?" but the taller brunette never seemed to mind, she understood Shaw, understood the mysterious language they spoke in with a learned fluency. They cared about it each other beyond the murder-attempts and kidnappings. They cared about each other in a way only they could.

"Nah I'm good. Stop worrying about me and take care of the baby, Sameen." Root lightly scolded her over the private line, gunfire and explosions in the background as Shaw imagined her decimating all of Samaritan's forces single handed.

"I don't know how, okay? I'm not child-proof, I might accidentally kill it." Shaw crossed her arms, side-glancing the crying baby who laid on Bear's bed.

"Pick her up gently in your arms like you're carrying unstable explosive materials, if your arms aren't loose and your body is stiff, she'll sense it."

Shaw paused for a moment, rolling her eyes and sighing before she caved in and held the baby to her chest as gently as she knew how. "Now what, it's still crying."

"Think positive thoughts, rock her gently."

"Positive thoughts?" she rolled her eyes, "The baby's a damn clairvoyant now?"

Before Shaw could mutter the expletives she wanted to mutter the passenger door swung open next to her, she grabbed the gun from the car's console and pointed it at the intruder ready to fire without thinking.

"You know, I really thought stay in the car with the baby was supposed to be the easy end of the bargain..." Root rolled her eyes, gesturing for Shaw to get in the front as she grabbed the screaming baby. "Don't worry Harry it's taken care of, we heading back to base?" Root asked whilst she hushed the crying baby, holding her to her chest and humming gently. "I know, I know." she cooed at the angry little thing in her arms, "She's not very cuddly, but she'll get better, I promise."

Shaw keyed the ignition and slammed it into reverse, backing all the way out of the street at break-neck speeds.

"Slow down, babies aren't known for their resilience and durability." Root shot her a stern eye.

"For once, I am in agreement with Miss Groves." Harold commented in their ears, "Get to LaGuardia Airport and dump the car, they'll be a private jet waiting for you and Mr Reese will meet you with supplies for the baby. It's not safe for any of you in New York anymore, you're going into hiding for the time being."

"No way," Shaw growled, throwing a hateful glance in the mirror at the baby.

"Relax," Root smiled and held the baby tightly to her chest, asleep blissfully. "We go to the Midwest for a month or two and spend some time researching Samaritan's plan, let things cool down here, and when we come back you'll never have to sell another bottle of illuminizer at the make-up counter again."

Shaw rolled her eyes and tightened her jaw, driving dutifully towards their given location. "Fine," she conceded with a deep sigh that blew the dust from her lungs. "I'm not going to be another counter girl, do you hear me Harry?"

"Quite clear Miss Shaw, the machine will allocate you new identities for your cover, I will simply make sure you have the resources at your disposal to stay safe and comfortable whilst you're away." he explained, Shaw felt a pang in her heart as she listened to Bear whine in the background, like he knew this was the moment he wouldn't see her again for a long, long time. She felt like whining too, she didn't sign up for this.

"What's our cover anyway?" Shaw sneered and already knew the answer.

"I would of thought that would be obvious, _Honey_." Root smiled from the backseat, before wincing in pain as they drove over a pothole.

"No way." Shaw barked into the headset. "Girlfriends? Seriously that's the best your God machine could come up with?"

"Actually, if you want to get specific, you've been married for three years; together for eight and you're transferring to your new home due to your job, please remember Miss Shaw, this is only temporary." Harold tried to reassure her as he tapped away incessantly at his keyboard in the background.

"Harold can you have John bring a first-aid kit?" Root winced again as they took a fast turn, "I've got a bullet stuck in my shoulder and I don't know how I feel about Shaw having a scalpel to hand for the next few hours."

"Loud and clear." Harold added. "Miss Shaw, are you on board?"

"Fine." Shaw bit her mouth and hissed, wondering why she agreed to these things. "But we get different names; Sameen, Samantha and Samille makes us look like a freakin' cult family and secondly, I'm not living in Iowa or worse, North Dakota."

"Well, the good news is the machine can give you slightly more varied names..." Harold explained.

"And the bad news?"

"North Dakota, here we come." Root grinned.


	2. Chapter 2

"Bear!" Sameen called with a smile through the busy airport terminal.

She quickly spotted the shepherd dog as she walked through the crowds of tourists towards John who stood unwavering in the center of the check-in area with supplies. Root lagged behind, a swaddled baby in one arm and a bullet in the other. She didn't care too much though, too consumed with relief that Harold had the forethought to send that damn dog. Shaw almost seemed more human when she was around his furry wagging tail. Then again, Root always did have a thing for women of the non-human persuasion.

"Everything you need is in the bag, I guess this is goodbye for now ladies." John frowned.

"I'm taking Bear," Sameen demanded and there was no mirth to her as she petted his head. "You want to send me half way across the country with Coco Puffs and Baby Annabelle? Fine, but I get the dog too."

"Given the circumstances of your new cover identities, perhaps that wouldn't be a terrible idea… just please remember, leftover Reuben sandwiches do not count as dog food, Miss Shaw." Harold hummed in their ears.

Root stepped forward and examined the stroller John had brought with him, "Jesus Christ, John. Where did you find this thing? A yard sale?" she asked, noting the wear and tear to the stroller.

"Not quite," he smirked, pulling the blanket forward so both women could see the weapon and armory contents of the stroller. "I found it in the parking lot, thought you might need something to hide a stash in."

"And here I was thinking I'd have to check my Colt in as carry-on baggage." Shaw sighed with relief, tossing her revolver underneath the blankets.

"Did you not think we might need space in the stroller for, I don't know, the baby?" Root asked them both through a narrowed gaze, gently rolling her bloodied shoulder to relax the nerve.

"Oh quit being so precious." Shaw growled, holding her hands forward. "I'll hold it and you push the stroller until we can get the bullet out."

"Remember what we talked about Sameen, gentle hands and no shaking when you hold the baby," she encouraged the smaller woman, passing her the tiny sleeping child swaddled in blankets.

"On that note, this is where we leave you both. The brown envelope on the bottom of the stroller contains your new identities and burner phones, I will send bank wire information in due course." Harold explained, his voice hesitating slightly on the other end as he came to realize this was goodbye for the foreseeable future.

"Reese." Shaw nodded.

"Shaw." He smiled back, before turning on his heels and walking towards the exit.

"What now, _Sweetie_." Shaw practically retched as she turned to face Root, unable to acclimatize to their new cover as they walked with Bear dutifully at the side of the stroller.

Root smiled as the machine whispered intel into her ear, pushing the armory on wheels through the airport terminal as she began to count down. "In three, two, one…" she whispered.

"Mrs and Mrs Lark?" a voice called for them, belonging to a petite uniformed woman presumably from the airline.

"That would be us!" Root grinned.

"Well this is disappointing, I thought you were counting down an explosion."

A look of relief washed over the young woman's face as she radioed confirmation that she'd found the couple back to her office. "I'm so sorry about the confusion, we have your jet ready on the tarmac, if you'd like to follow me I'll take you there now."

"That would be great." Shaw forced a smile, falling in step behind her as she lead the way.

"Is there anything I can get you both?" she asked, turning over her shoulder as she glanced curiously at the dirty rickety stroller."I see you must have already shipped everything to Fargo, nothing to check in right?"

As if on command the baby began to scream in Shaw's arms, wailing and crying in that tone that made the sociopath want to throw her on to the conveyor belt and check her in as stow away baggage.

"Formula," Shaw said indifferently, stiffly holding the wailing newborn with a dead expression. "And bottles." she added as an after thought.

"Oh, and if you have a steak knife and some vodka, that would be great too." Root offered her brightest smile, pushing the squeaking stroller quickly behind them as the stewardess glanced at the shepherd dog that strolled off its lead next to her.

* * *

"How do you get it to sleep?" Shaw asked with a slight air of intrigue as she unbuckled her seat-belt and grabbed the first aid kit from the overhead compartment.

Root smiled and glanced down at the sleeping baby as she traced her fingers over soft rosy cheeks and thatched dark hair. She'd always been a pro with kids, maybe in a different life she would of had some herself, if she had a different body, one that was up to the task. "Babies just need to feel safe and loved, I hold her to my chest so she can hear the hum when I talk and my heart beating and I guess I just hope for the best." she shrugged her shoulders.

"As informative as that is Mary Poppins, put the baby on the sofa, you've got a bullet with my name written all over it." Shaw smirked, tapping the butt of the metal blade on the mahogany table that separated them.

Root wrapped the baby in blankets, placing her gently in the corner of the leather sofa on the other side of the aircraft. 'Watch her, Bear.' she ordered the dog and he obediently jumped onto the sofa and laid down with his nose nearly touching her tiny feet.

She swallowed and turned back to Shaw, grimacing as the reality occurred to her that she would have to suffer the bullet extraction in silence unless she wanted a screaming baby on her hands whilst Shaw performed a whipple stitch in her shoulder.

"This part is going to sting, in fact, all of it is going to kind of suck." Shaw admitted without much concern. She peeled Root's bloodied t-shirt from her body and gently pressed her fingers around the entry-wound, earning a deep hiss from the other woman. "See, sucks right?"

"Let's just say it doesn't feel as good as the last time your hands were on my body." Root tried to ignore the deep gnaw of Shaw cleaning out the bullet wound with vodka.

"Not around the baby, Root."

"At least we have some progress, before she was just _It_."

"I was referring to Bear, not the thing." Shaw tensed her jaw, eyes black at the mention of the child. "This part is going to extra suck, there's some Fentanyl in the hold-all, do you need it?" Shaw asked gruffly, dousing the tip of the steak knife in vodka as she prepared to pries the bullet out of Root's body.

"Fentanyl sounds fun, but no." Root swallowed. The day she fell unconscious around an armed Sameen Shaw with a baby less than ten feet away would be a cold day in Hell.

"Suit yourself." she quirked her lips, digging the tip of the blade into the wound as Root bit back a scream. Her breathing grew jagged and shallow as she tried to stay as still as possible, she clenched her eyes closed, the feel of the knife digging around inside her flesh, pressed against the joint, just about touching her nerve as Shaw fiddled for the bullet made her knuckles turn white. The sound of metal clinking against the mahogany table was the signal she needed to start breathing again, hands trembling, she took a gulp from the vodka bottle in front of her. "I thought you said it would hurt?" Root played it down.

"And yet I'm guessing it still probably sucked less than the time Control took a scalpel to your stapes bone." Shaw mused, threading a needle.

"You were there to fix me up after that one too." Root smiled as Shaw began the arduous task of sewing up her wound with fishing line. Root didn't remember much when she lost part of her hearing, especially after all the drugs they pumped through her body.

She couldn't be sure to this day whether it was a hallucination or not but she distinctly remembered tanned arms carrying her out of the building and into the car, curled in someone's lap all the way back to library with her head lolling against their shoulder, breathing in the sweet smell that clung to their shirt whilst their hand stroked her hair, whispering sweet little things that she couldn't quite remember in her good ear.

She thought it might have been John but last time she checked, he didn't wear perfume.

* * *

Root was asleep on the sofa with a tiny little bundle of blankets lying peacefully asleep on her chest too, both of their mouths hanging slightly ajar. Shaw tried not to give any merit to it, yet even she stole the occasional glance at how cute they were. Finally, she tore herself away and sipped on her scotch, playing with the brown envelope in front of her that contained their identity details. She bit the bullet and pulled out the files and began to read.

_Captain Sarah Lark: _

_Former U.S Marshal, transferring to the Fargo Police Department to head up their Homicide Division with a twelve year impeccable service record._

She glanced over the information, pocketing her burner phone as she flicked through the birth certificates, passports, security numbers, it was all there and although she'd never say it, the thought scared her a little of touching down in Fargo a completely new woman for what could be any length of time.

_Samantha Lark: _

_Newly appointed Head of Application Development at MalCorp IT, impeccable references from Microsoft, Avanade and McAfee. Extremely passionate about SaaS development and Resource Efficiency Applications. _

Boring, Shaw thought. She rolled her eyes and knocked back her drink and took another glance at the kid that had landed them in all of this. It wasn't that she hated children, they just didn't register on her radar, they didn't exist in her universe, and rightly so. What place was there for a baby among guns, violence and torture? Babies were stupid, this baby was stupid, she decided.


	3. Chapter 3

The first nights were the worst. The humid barely-there draft of wind was hardly enough to stir the curtains let alone keep them cool in the depth of night. Root and the baby barely suffered, holed up in the master bedroom with thin linen sheets and the ceiling fan. It was Shaw who caught the worst of it, sticky and never more than barely asleep on the sofa in her underwear.

Shaw opened her eyes and blinked as car headlights slowly pulled into the street and diluted the dark edges of the living room, without pause or hesitation she rolled off the sofa cushions and reached for her rifle, peering down its barrel to get a better look of the vehicle that slowed to a halt.

"Relax." Root yawned and stretched out from the doorway. "It's the Kennedy family from across the street, they just got back from vacation."

"Did the machine tell you that?" Shaw turned over her shoulder and breathed a relieved sigh.

"No, Facebook did." Root waved the blue and white screen of her phone.

"Seriously?" Shaw rolled her eyes, "We've been here four days and you already have the whole town on Facebook?"

"No, Samantha Lark does." Root smiled and leaned against the frame, "By the way, you look good." she eyed her with that look reserved for ten hours to kill in a government safe house with nothing but a chair and zip ties to keep them company. "Working out lately?"

Shaw got up off the floor and dusted herself down, pulling on a shirt that hung over the coffee table. "It's hot down here, okay?" she rolled her eyes.

"I'm certainly not one to complain, why don't you sleep upstairs too?"

"Because."

"I'm up there?" Root shot her a look.

"You're up there." Shaw agreed, her eyes avoiding Root's until it was unavoidable and then she shrugged off the feeling that came when she looked into her eyes for too long. "We shouldn't go there, Root. You know it can't end well."

"You know, sometimes life is about the journey… not the destination." she smiled and it was a sad wilting thing, as much as Shaw tried, she wasn't immune to it. "...I miss you, Sameen." she whispered and reached out for her and it was entirely too much for Shaw to handle.

Shaw took her and it was fast, like an animal, a wild thing howling and chuffing somewhere deep in the woods she pounced and grabbed Root by the waist and took her mouth in her own. Her shoulders were sinewed and scarred from learning the hard way and Root felt it all beneath her fingertips as she stumbled closer against her. "I was so scared." Root whispered and did her best to keep her voice measured, though her eyes betrayed her and drank the smaller woman in.

"I don't want to talk about it." Shaw pulled away from their kiss and her voice was almost gentle.

"I know and I don't—" Root looked away and the words were caught in her throat, throttling her, instead she bit it back and kept it together and did these things out of love rather than want. "I don't know what they did to you Sameen but when you're ready to talk—"

"I don't want to talk about it." Shaw leaned in and repeated a little more certain this time.

"Okay." she abided and her fingers danced up and down her arm in that reassuring little way Shaw hated. "Whatever you need."

There was a knock to the door and it jolted them both. Deep rasps against the wood that were too fast and hard to come from the hand of anyone who wasn't there without urgent purpose.

"Who the hell is that?" Root murmured to herself and grabbed Shaw's arm a little tighter.

"What? Do you think I have x-ray vision now?" the knocks came again but this time they came faster and harder and longer against the wood. "Looks like we've got company." Shaw gritted her teeth and grabbed a handgun from the coffee table. "Get behind me and stay low." she whispered to the taller brunette and shuffled slowly to the door.

"Oh, please." Root rolled her eyes and strutted back down the corridor to the entrance, yanking a blade from the knife block on the kitchen counter as she passed it to the door. Without caution, Root opened the door wide and stood hand on hip with the knife hidden behind the panel.

"Hello?" she eyed the man at the door.

He was maybe in his thirties, thick moustache and stubble, a wide set jaw that didn't smile or frown either way, his eyes were an icy blue and he was ruggedly handsome. If it wasn't for her cover or for the complicated business of loving a sociopath, Root would probably have told him as much.

"Hi! You must be the new neighbours, listen—" he started.

"Don't you think it's a little late at night for this kind of thing?" Shaw crept up beside Root with that stoic stare that she was fluent in.

"_Honey_, play nice." Root eyed her and wrapped an arm around her waist. "As much as it pains me to say it, my wife does have a point. It's a little late at night for pleasantries, Mr…?"

"Dylan, Dylan Hanning. That's not why I came over, I just caught some guy lurking around outside my house, he was looking over at your place with binoculars and as soon as I came out he ran and jumped over into your yard. Mind if I check it out?"

"Let's go and check it out." Shaw's shoulders puffed up and she stepped out on to the porch and Dylan couldn't help but throw his stare at the floor.

"Honey..." Root pulled her back inside of the door. "You're not wearing any pants." she whispered inside her ear and as if on command to fluster Shaw even more, tiny wailing cries began to fill the house from the master bedroom.

"Sorry if I woke your baby knocking on the door." Dylan scratched his neck.

"It's okay she's a light sleeper, _Sarah_, why don't you go and check on little…" Root stumbled, suddenly unable to think of a cover name for their child.

"Miller." Shaw jumped in, remembering the beer she bought earlier in the day along with the baby formula at the grocery store. "I'll go check on little Miller," she forced a sickeningly wide smile, "And you take this nice gentlemen through to check the backyard, _Sweetie_."

"Love you, Kitten." Root stepped onto the porch and sighed through a smile as Sameen bit back the worst it and closed the front door.

"Sorry about that." Dylan winced with a little embarrassment.

"Don't worry, did you get a look at the guy?" Root walked round the side of the house with him, knife hidden inside the hem of her pants, eyes searching back and forth for any unusual activity. The machine had been radio silent since they'd landed in Fargo, their new identities a secret even to her, she wondered how she'd survived it so long without a voice whispering in her ear all the spoilers. Not that this phased her, it just wasn't anywhere near as fun.

"Light build, sandy hair, he had a laptop under his arm but I didn't catch much more than that." Dylan reeled off the description and pointed his flashlight around the garden.

There was movement in the bushes and the sound of exhausted breaths, with lightening speed Dylan un-holstered his gun and pointed it where the brambles moved against each other. "Get on the ground and put your hands where I can see them." he hummed, hands steady.

Root held the blade in her hand tight and pretended to be nervous not to blow her cover.

"Okay, okay." the boy shot up out of the trees.

"George!" Root pulled back in surprise, eyeing the scrawny teenager up and down.

He'd helped her take down a few key servers in one of Samaritan's units months ago and hosted all the untraceable IPs the underground network used so she could communicate with every engineer, techie and systems designer that collaborated in the effort to take Samaritan down. The best in his field and only seventeen years old, though she didn't know how he found himself on her doorstep when Samantha Groves no longer existed.

"You know this kid?" Dylan put down his weapon and eyed Root.

"He's our foster son." Root breathed a deep sigh and shook her head at the boy who could all but mouth an apology at her. "I'm really sorry about all of this, teenage boys right?" she groaned.

"Your boy was trespassing on my property, I'm calling it in." he reached for his phone.

"Please," she grabbed his hand and the urgency of their cover not being blown was paramount. "Look— I, I'm really sorry, the move up to Fargo hasn't been easy on George here." she gestured to the boy and glared at him, "I really don't want him getting in trouble with the police, besides, my wife starts down at the station Monday and you know, people talk." Root frowned and fluttered her eyes. She grabbed the boy and squeezed his shoulder, her fingers digging deep into the nerve. "What do you have to say to the nice man?"

"I won't do it again, I'm sorry." George frowned.

Reluctantly, he shook his head and put his phone back into his pocket. "Your wife, what department is she starting in?"

"She's taking over the homicide division."

Dylan eyed her curiously. "I work in homicide, we heard last week they were benching O'Berne and bringing in some new guy. Captain Lark, right?"

"That would be my Sa-rah!" Root sing-songed through a little smile and she was determined to nail down this perfect suburban wife cover. "I'm having a little get together Tuesday to get to know the ladies on the street, let your wife know she's more than welcome to join us. Goodnight, Mr Hanning."

"It's Detective Hanning." he corrected her and walked with them out of the yard, "But you can call me Dylan."

…

Shaw rocked the tiny thing in one arm and put the RPG-7 launcher together piece by piece with the other, it seemed entirely over the top but if Samaritan had found them, they wouldn't have just sent one agent. She sat away from the windows just to be on the safe side but she knew Root could handle herself well.

"—Then, we put the TBG warhead in the chamber. Now, you're going to want to use a thermobaric explosive booster if you don't know how many targets there are. If you're aiming at anything more than 200 metres away, always go for fragmentation over precision. Trust me, you'll thank me one day." Shaw sighed and slid the booster grenade into the barrel. "If you use this thing with a target less than 50 metres away, don't worry about aim. Stevie Wonder could fire this thing and take down an entire Al Qaeda outpost if it's 50 metres away."

The baby yawned and it was a sloping great-long thing that seemed to never end. Arms stretched out, her little eyes searched Shaw's face and it felt entirely intrusive.

"At least you're an observant student." Shaw muttered to herself and threw the cannon over her shoulder. "You hang out here and do whatever it is you do, I'm going to go do a little investigating of my own." she put the baby on the bed and tapped the barrel.

"Put that thing down." Root scolded her and grabbed her brow in frustration, dragging the boy behind her into the room. "Seriously, I'm gone for ten minutes and you put the RPG-7 together without me? That was supposed to be our _shared_ toy."

Shaw stared and blinked for a moment, waiting for an explanation for the elephant in the room.

"Good old Soviet engineering, you gotta love the Russians." George flopped on the chaise lounge and stretched out his feet.

"I know right? Israeli special ops had something special with the Uzi but the RPG-7 is just Russian mastery at its finest." Root crossed her arms and nodded.

"Is someone going to explain what George is doing here?" Shaw looked between them, not so patiently waiting.

"Yeah, George, what are you doing here?" Root narrowed her stare too.

"You went full black-out five days ago and there was no way to find you. Every profile, cache, IP host was sanitised—"

"Get to the point, Freckles. How the hell did you find us?" Shaw sat down and placed the grenade launcher across her lap.

"Not easily." he huffed and swept his glasses over his ginger hair, "Me and the boys had to triangulate the signal from your last authenticated phone login. LaGuardia Airport at 11.38pm, five days ago. I went through the flight list and three flights left around that time, Los Angeles and Berlin were way too hot so I knew it had to be Fargo. We crossed referenced what we had and found out there was a new head of app. development over at MalCorp. I knew it had to be you."

"You're telling me..." Shaw raised up her hand in disbelief and wiped her hung open mouth. "You're telling me a seventeen year old kid found us within five days when we're supposed to be hidden from a super artificial intelligence?" Shaw looked between them both again.

"Yeah, I'd say that's pretty accurate." George nodded and passed his laptop to Root. "The resistance intercepted data packets three days ago from Samaritan. You two are its biggest threat. I don't know what you both did, but Samaritan is pissed. Whatever you did, you're _never_ going to be able to come back to New York."

"Did you hear that Root?"

"Hmm," she looked up from the laptop screen and pretended to be interesting. "Oh yeah, sure, big bad Samaritan. Yikes."

"Root!" Shaw growled.

"It's too dangerous for communication over the internet. I had to deliver the data packets to you myself." George stood from the chaise lounge. "You're safe here, Murphy managed to get a job in maintenance in a Samaritan data centre using a fake identity. We've hard coded the servers to completely ignore North Dakota in its searches. As far as it's concerned, Fargo doesn't even exist."

"That's nice and everything but I'm going to need you to sit down, George." Root mumbled, scrolling through the data packets.

"Why? What's going on?" he said, nervously.

"What have you got Root?" Shaw moved to her side and peaked at the screen.

"Well firstly, I had to tell Detective Hanning that you were our foster son so he didn't get you arrested and blow our cover." Root shot him a glare, "Which by the way, you can thank me for any time the mood takes you. Secondly, Samaritan sent new data packets two hours ago… It's looking for you too. If you leave North Dakota, you'll be dead the second you cross the state line."

"Today just keeps getting better and better." Shaw gritted her teeth and pounded the room with her feet, hands on hips, furious. "We are not Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, we can't keep taking in kids who somehow managed to piss off a god like AI. Okay?" she stared down Root.

"That is _exactly_ what we do. Until this thing is fixed, we take care of them." Root stood from her chair.

Shaw pointed, her finger extended, her cheeks blown out as she waited for the words to come to her. "You two better figure this thing out." she huffed, throwing the grenade launcher over her shoulder. "Come on, Miller, I'll show you how to fix a nozzle block with chewing gum." she holstered the baby to her side and stalked out of the room.

"At least she's stopped calling the baby _it_." Root swallowed and turned back to the laptop.


	4. Chapter 4

Days had turned into weeks, weeks into months, it all blurred together like a mandala made up solely of the insipid colours of North Dakota snow and sludge. The snowflakes came down in a thick heavy dusting as she drove back from the police station, head lamps lighting up the pitch-dark roads back to their little slice of suburbia.

The lights were on in the master bedroom as she pulled into the driveway and it was an unusual sign. Normally, Root went to her pretend job and lived her pretend life and came home to their pretend baby, fed her and put her to sleep under the roof of their pretend house, worked a little with George on getting them back to New York and then passed out asleep before Shaw finally came home and gave up avoiding them all for another day.

She was greeted to the sounds of tiny howling squeals that drifted from somewhere upstairs and the sight of George hunched up attempting to sleep with a blanket wrapped around him on the sofa where she normally slept.

"Hey, Freckles, what the hell do you think you're doing?" she kicked off her boots and glared at him through the hallway.

"The baby is sick. Root took the day off work but the noise is keeping me awake." he shrugged and sat up. "Came down here to catch some sleep."

"Tough shit, move now. That's my spot." she growled like a territorial animal.

"If you want any chance of going home, I need to be well rested so I can—"

"So you can do what exactly? Sit around jacking it off to hentai porn all day while we're at work?" she crossed her arms, "Move. Now."

"So I can figure out how to hack the mainframe and hard-code Samaritan so we can all get out of here alive." he stared her down, "Aren't you supposed to be like a doctor or something?"

"Once upon a time."

"She's not doing great…"

"Root can handle the baby." Sameen sighed and rubbed her brow.

"I wasn't talking about the baby. I mean, the baby is sick, but Root is all kinds of messed up about it." his voice tapered off quietly and he looked away from Sameen's predator-like stare. "Maybe you should go and check it out."

Shaw rolled her eyes and climbed the stairs in a perfectly cool manner. She didn't scramble up each stair, didn't call Root's name, didn't rush to her side and promise to fix whatever it was that was wrong. Instead she walked across the corridor towards the deafening sound of tiny squeals, knocked the bedroom door and waited patiently.

"Root, you in there?" Shaw said awkwardly.

There was no reply and so she let herself in to the battleground. Tiny clothes littered the bedroom floor along with all kinds of baby-paraphernalia; mainly bottles and pacifiers and spit-up rags. Root sat in the rocking chair in the corner where the wall met the window, rocking and humming with a swaddled lump in her arms that she hushed tenderly.

"Root?" Shaw cleared her throat and stepped towards her. "You need back up?" she eyed the baby in their ward.

"No, I can handle this." she scolded her quickly before humming once more.

Her hair was wrapped in a bun and she sat in her pyjamas, tending to a thankless little screaming terror who would never recognise her devotion: much like the Machine in that regard and the thought made Sameen smirk.

"Let me take a look at her." Shaw rolled her eyes and reached out for the baby with deft hands.

"I said no!" Root's voice shook and she hunched her body around the swaddled infant protectively. She was wild eyed, looking the sociopath up and down with a deep glare.

Normally Shaw would roll her eyes, normally she would shrug it off, normally she'd be thankful for the sanctioned opportunity to flee back to a safe distance from the child. But that was entirely the trouble when it came to Samantha Groves. She inspired the absolutely abnormal.

"It's okay." Shaw swallowed and tried to pacify her, "Whatever it is that's going on with you. It's okay." she nodded over the shrieking sound of the howling baby.

"I can do this." Root gritted her teeth and clawed back a pained whimper that she wouldn't let wet her cheeks.

"I know," Shaw nodded and stepped closer. "But you know the upside of us being trapped in some cesspit in North Dakota?"

"Enlighten me." Root bit and pulled the baby up to her shoulder, rubbing her back with a thumb that tended to it's ministrations with the utmost gentleness.

"We're in it together." Shaw swallowed and was finally close enough to reach out and wrap her hands around the baby's chubby little tummy. "There, see?" she swallowed and gently pried the baby out of Root's arms. "I'm just going to take a look at her…"

Shaw cradled the baby with her head in the nook of her elbow and sat down on the edge of the bed. It was strange how naturally it happened, without forethought or preparation.

"Hi," she whispered down and ran her finger around Miller's neck, "You're a little swollen." she hummed and examined her a little closer. "And a little congested." she noted at the sound of wheezy sobs from her tiny chest.

"Do we need to go to the hospital?" Root nearly chewed her fingers off.

"No." Shaw said and peered up at her with a stony facade. "She has a _mean_ cold, but a cold none the less."

"She hasn't stopped crying for… for hours." Root shook her head and her hands were shaky. "I kept thinking: she's in pain and it's all my fault." she blinked away little tears.

"Okay, well, mystery solved." Shaw sighed, "Go get me a warm wet cloth."

"What?"

"Just do it." she rolled her eyes and carried the baby deftly in one arm to the other side of the bed. She plumped up pillows and cursed under her breath whilst Miller made long mewing sounds from her spot in Shaw's elbow.

…

There was a silence that felled the house. Absolute and reverent. The only thing that disturbed it was the wheezy breathy snores of the baby fast asleep on Shaw's chest.

"I hate kids." Shaw shuddered quietly and stared straight ahead of herself as the diapered baby slept with a cheek pressed against the space between her collarbones with a hot wet cloth pressed to her back loosening the mucus off her lungs.

"Motherhood suites you." Root teased through a sloping smile with an elbow dug into the mattress.

"Next time I'm getting a motel for the night."

"You're free to leave any time." Root gestured for the door but Shaw kept her ground on the bed and simply closed her eyes.

"If you think for a second I'm risking waking this baby—"

"Miller." Root interrupted her with a deep and longing stare. "Stop emotionally distancing yourself like she's not a real person. She is - albeit very tiny." she conceded the last part and ran her thumb over all five of the snowdrop toes on her foot.

"I'm a sociopath; I don't need to emotionally distance myself from anything."

"You were in a Samaritan torture camp for nine months and you never broke once. Now, you're lying here with a baby asleep on your chest and you haven't even noticed you've been rubbing her back for the last forty-five minutes. You're a pretty bad sociopath."

Shaw quickly pulled her hand off the child's back and hid it beside her like she could take it back. "We could be here for a long time, Root. We're talking years of deep-cover. You can't get too attached to this kid…"

"Too late." Root barely mouthed as she stared adoringly at the little girl.

"Don't make that face." Shaw shuddered. "I always imagined you being a cat kind of person, definitely not kids."

"You clearly have me pegged all wrong." Root curled up and there was a dampness to her.

"You going to tell me what that was all about earlier?"

"Are you going to tell me why you've been ignoring me since you came back from South Africa?" Root shrugged it off and tucked her feet beneath herself.

"Let's just say I'm still getting acquainted with reality." she swallowed and the baby on top of her chest wrinkled her nose and sneezed before settling back down into something that resembled sleep. "Gross." she whispered with a scrunched up face and wiped down the snot from her shoulder. "And you? What's your deal?"

"I had a baby, once." Root said without hesitation and glanced away, she looked at the ceiling and the floor and everything in between that wasn't Sameen and chewed her lip. "Long time ago." she forced a little smile and looked back at her.

"Shit." Shaw blinked and found herself at a loss.

"Yeah." Root nodded in agreement and rolled on her back until she was staring at the ceiling. _"Shit."_

"What happened?"

"Teenage girl on the run, growing up underground, crashing on sofas were I could? I was lonely… and stupid." she shook her head and blinked, "I was sixteen and met this guy. His name was Billy but his friends called him Viper." she rolled her eyes at the nickname, as if she could go back in time and lecture her younger-self on things you can only learn from experience from guys who called themselves nicknames like _Viper_. "He was older, much older, worked in a computer hardware store and drove a beat up wrangler that his dad bought him." she smirked.

"Sounds like a real classic romance, Root."

"It was... until it wasn't; nine months later I was curled up in a gas station bathroom going into labour with a black eye and two cracked ribs that didn't get there from bumping into a door and _Viper_ had skipped town."

"This is officially the worst story ever." Shaw sneered and swallowed. She did her best to hide any facet of emotion, she did it so well she even tricked herself for a moment, but then Root's throat quivered and her hand flexed back and forth into a little fist and Shaw felt a sickness rise up in her chest at the thought of anyone ever hurting a hair on her head. "What happened?" Shaw finally pried after a moment of silence.

"Nothing." Root shrugged and discretely dried her eyes.

"What the _hell_ do you mean nothing?"

"I mean nothing." she said again but more firmer this time. "I didn't— _she _didn't—" she tried to get the words out but they burned up in her throat, even after all these years. "She didn't make it."

"Root…" Shaw said softly and reached her hand across the vast space of mattress that separated them.

"They found me in time." Root nodded and reassured herself more than anything. "Breach birth, lost a lot of blood, the owner thought I was in there shooting drugs when he finally called the cops." she chuckled at the gnawing indignance of it. "But the cord…" she licked her lips and her cheeks were wet, "You see the cord was wrapped—"

"Shh," Sameen said softly and caught her cheek with the pads of her fingers. "I know." she nodded and kept her hand pressed into her jaw until fat dewey tear drops ran down Root's cheek and through the webs of her fingers. "You must have been in bad shape." she said quietly to herself and shook her head a little, trying desperately not to gag on the thought of her curled up on a bathroom floor with a baby that wouldn't cry.

"What's a torn uterine wall between friends." Root bit her mouth and tried her very best to sniff back all of it into the depths of the void that was cradled in her gut.

"This really does explain so much about you." Shaw shook her head.

"Well, I'm glad to have unravelled an enigma for you, Sweetie." she whispered with a bitterness.

"I died thousands of times." Shaw blurted and ground her jaw. "You were there, every time."

"What?"

"When I was captured… they put me through these simulations to try and brainwash me. I remember every one of them and every time I died… protecting you."

The baby nuzzled it's face deeper into Shaw's collar bone, wrinkling it's nose, making tiny gurgles and clenching its eyes. Shaw was masterful, she hushed and stroked the bits of curly hair on her head and patted her butt and the test passed quickly and they were victorious this round.

"Why would you do something like that?" Root swallowed and joined in, stroking Miller's back until her hand briefly grazed against Shaw's.

Shaw closed her eyes and sighed, "Well," she breathed and reinforced her resolve, "You just wouldn't stop bugging me." she half smiled and forced her mouth back into a straight line.

"Always full of surprises, Sameen."

"Uh-huh."

"What are we gonna do if we are stuck here for years?"

Shaw stiffened for a moment and bit her mouth, her fingers flexed as if they couldn't quite grasp the idea and the lacuna in her gut where wayward ideas of peace went home to die bubbled and gnawed at her.

"We'll make it work." Shaw looked her in the eye and nodded.

Quietly, without a single word, Root slipped her hand into Shaw's and inched a little closer across the empty space that separated them until her nose scraped against the little scar on her shoulder and her leg hooked the sociopath's hip. There was a resistance at first, a quiet protest that came in the form of stiff shoulders and a tense jaw that ground and rubbed against itself like two tectonic plates holding back an earthquake. Root closed her eyes and slowly felt it relax and dissipate through them both.

"Think you could sleep like this, Sweetie?" Root tried with lazy eyes and a sloping smile.

"I'm not a freakin' chaise lounge." she looked between the wheezing baby that was starfished on her chest and the psychopath nuzzled into her shoulder and tried her absolute hardest to keep up her angry pretense. "If you steal my side of the quilt I'll kill you and make it look like an accident." she grunted and pulled a thin bit of quilt up to her waist and just over the baby's back.

"That's my girl." Root smiled and nuzzled a little closer with a yawn.

Sameen laid there awake and barely blinking for the best part of an hour. Long after Root began to gently snore and the baby on her chest wheezed away too as if they slept in a synergetic rhythm. Miller's cheek was warm against her chest and amidst the absolute stillness of night Shaw felt her little heartbeat flutter against her skin.

Though she would never admit it, not to anyone or any artificial intelligence, she hiked up the quilt and tucked it around Root's shoulders and brushed a piece of hair out of her face before closing her eyes with a deep exhausted sigh.


End file.
